Posts by E-Bangladesh:
- Jahangir Alam Akash detained and tortured.
- Persecuted for exposing extra-judicial executions by RAB.
- IFEX alert.
- Drishtipat commentary.
- Asian Human Rights Commission appeal.
- M Saifur Rahman “acting chairperson.”
- Hafiz Uddin Ahmed “acting secretary general.”
- 6 standing committee members held hostage at gun point.
- Khandaker Delwar Hossain, ASM Hannan Shah missing.
- DGFI — ATM Amin and Chowdhury Fazlul Bari — behind the coup.
- “An absolute violation of the BNP constitution.”
Corruption suspects to be notified
November 6th, 2007[Dhaka Correspondent] Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is soon likely to notify 11 more major corruption suspects, including former adviser to caretaker government Justice Fazlul Haque, to submit their wealth statements.
Hannan, Hafiz trade coup charges
November 2nd, 2007[Dhaka Correspondent] Two military officer-turned-BNP leaders have accused each other of being involved in the coup of November 3, 1975 that saw the then deputy army chief Ziaur Rahman detained and another coup on May 31, 1981 in which Zia, then military dictator of the country, was assassinated.
Khaleda rejects Saifur-Hafiz
November 2nd, 2007[Dhaka Correspondent] Imprisoned BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, has rejected the appointment of acting chairperson and acting secretary general and the proceedings of an October 29 meeting of the standing committee members which was held without her consent.
Tortured: Jahangir Alam Akash
October 31st, 2007
[An E-Bangladesh report.]
E-Bangladesh has received a statement from journalist Jahangir Alam Akash, now imprisoned in Rajshahi central jail. The statement along with a note by another political prisoner were smuggled out of the prison and passed to E-Bangladesh. Translated by Rezwan from Bengali.
Email details assault on Delwar
October 31st, 2007[Update: Coup in BNP.]
– BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain, from a hospital bed, has described to newsmen how he and his family are now under threat, The Daily Star reported.
– Akhter Hamid Paban, son of Khandaker Delwar Hossain, arrested Tuesday night, bdnews24.com reported.
[An E-Bangladesh report.]
In an email to E-Bangladesh a close relative of BNP secretary general Khandaker Delwar Hossain has detailed how a DGFI team led by Brigadier General ATM Amin assaulted Delwar Sunday evening. According to news reports, Delwar himself told newsmen: “They came into my house on Sunday night and told me that I would have to agree to resign from my post, accept the new chairperson and secretary general of their choice, and would have to join Monday’s standing committee meeting, or else the lives of my family members and my own would be in danger.”
Babar gets 17 years
October 30th, 2007[Dhaka Correspondent] A special tribunal in Dhaka Tuesday sentenced former state minister for home affairs, Lutfozzaman Babar, to 17 years of rigorous imprisonment for possessing unlicensed arms and ammunition. Judge of Special Tribunal 9, Syed Zahed Mansur, handed down the verdict in Babar’s presence.
BNP midnight coup: Zillur
October 30th, 2007[Dhaka Correspondent] Awami League acting president, Zillur Rahman, Tuesday termed the sudden announcement of Saifur Rahman assuming the post of acting chairman and Hafizuddin Ahmed acting secretary general of BNP Monday night as a “midnight coup,” and straightway dismissed any possibility of the same thing happening to his party.
DGFI engineers BNP coup
October 29th, 2007
[An E-Bangladesh report.]
Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency has engineered a leadership takeover in BNP — one of the largest political parties in the country — after holding 6 out of the 14 standing committee members hostage at gun point for several hours. In a dramatic turn of events, former finance minister M Saifur Rahman has declared himself acting chairperson and Hafiz Uddin Ahmed acting secretary general of the party.
Denial will rewrite history soon
October 27th, 2007[Update.]
Former Islami Bank chairman and Jamaat-e-Islam think-tank Shah Abdul Hannan has described the Liberation War of 1971 as a “civil war.” He denied that genocide took place in the country at that time and that war criminals exist here. Speaking on a talk show, Ekushey Shomoy, on private satellite television channel Ekushey Television Friday, Hannan also expressed doubts that three million people died in the war and supported a Pakistani report according to which only 26,000 people or less died during the Liberation War. The Daily Star has a transcript of his comments.
[Video: Student wing of Jamaat, Islami Chatra Shibir, participating in a rally posing as Muktijoddhas.This is how they are changing colors.]
[Rezwan, Germany.]
Now it is being claimed that no war criminal exists in the country. Maybe after some time they will say that the Liberation War never took place. All this will mean, we will be deprived of the real history.
– Former chief justice and chairman of the Law Commission Mostafa Kamal.
Bangladeshis were outraged by the Islamist political party Jamaat-e-Islam’s leader Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed’s statement that “Jamaat did not work against the Liberation War in 1971 and there are no war criminals in the country.”
Separation of judiciary: an eyewash?
October 27th, 2007[Rezwan, Germany.]
An independent judiciary free from influence of legislative and executive organs of the state is the prime requirement of a democratic state. article 22 of Bangladesh constitution states:
The State shall ensure the separation of the judiciary from the executive organs of the State.
However this was not made possible since the independence of Bangladesh in absence of no specific vesting of judicial power to the judiciary. Moreover as per the constitution (article 115 and 116) the appointment and control of judges in the judicial service or as magistrates exercising judicial duties be made by the president. He controls (including the power of posting, promotion and grant of leave) and discipline of persons employed in the judicial service and magistrates.
